ZAGREB, 21 Jan 2022 - The Bridge and Social Democrats groups in the Croatian Parliament on Friday used the discussion on the new law on consumer protection to criticize the government for its poor handling of "galloping inflation."
"Everyone is protecting their citizens except the Croatian government, which says it might do something (about the inflation)," Social Democrat Davor Bernardić said, calling on MPs to support their proposal to freeze the prices of staples.
"In the last 10 months, every other food product has gone up in price. Prices of some products have increased by 150 percent, and the price of toilet paper has gone up by as much as 50 percent," he added.
Bridge's Nikola Grmoja wondered if the government was thinking of protecting consumers from its unreasonable decisions, such as a freeze on fuel prices. He instead called for the abolition of excise taxes on fuel, because otherwise "the cost will again be borne by consumers."
Lawmakers from the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) said the new law on consumer protection was a "serious step forward." They welcomed the fact that the dual quality of goods, namely the marketing in Croatia of goods purporting to be of the same quality as those placed on the market in other EU member states even though they differ in composition and quality, would be treated as an unfair trading practice.
Barbara Antolić from the Social Democratic Party (SDP) welcomed the new law but noted that it lacked qualified people to monitor its implementation because inspectors were not trained well enough for online sales.
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